The present invention relates in general to a reed assembly for use in textile weaving machines, and more particularly to a reed assembly having a reinforced end structure.
As is commonly known in the art, reeds are typically longer than the actual width of the fabric they are producing in order to provide space to make fabrics of varying width without interchanging machine components. Also, the additional reed width may be necessary to provide a false selvage in the fabric, or to provide space for mounting a filling detector, filling clamp, or other auxiliary equipment. There are a number of reasons for providing the reed assembly with a wider width than the fabric being manufactured.
With modern day high-speed weaving machines and the weaving of tightly woven fabrics, dynamic forces acting on the reed assembly are relatively large due to the reciprocating motion of the reed and the beat-up of each fill thread or yarn in succession into the fell line of the fabric. It has been found that the reeds tend to suffer rather quick metal fatigue failure when the dynamic forces throughout the portion doing the beat-up are different or out of phase with other portions of the reed that are not subjected to the breaking force of the fell line, or that carry additional devices, such as a detector, clamp, or the like. For example, the dynamic forces acting on the section of the reed assembly defined by the width of the fabric are different than the forces acting on the reed assembly extending beyond the fabric width simply because of the absence of a breaking forcing at the fell line. Also, the dynamic forces acting at the top of the reed assembly, particularly at the ends of the top channel, are different than the forces at the bottom channel which is rigidly mounted in the driving slay. In conventional reed assemblies that incorporate a spacer bar at the ends of the reed for mounting detectors or other devices, it has been found that such configuration is susceptible to failure generally at the interface between the top channel and spacer bar member. It is believed that this failure is due to the different dynamic forces acting on the individual components.
The present invention relates to an improved reed that substantially reduces the effects of varying dynamic forces on the reeds and, thus, substantially increases the life of the reeds.